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Actor Gael Garcia Bernal plays the subject of the film, journalist, Maziar Bahari, in Rosewater. The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

As Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal fulfilled a secret wish in poignant fashion — with an assist from Leonard Cohen — in the political drama Rosewater.

“I’ve always enjoyed dancing but secretly I’ve always thought that maybe I could have been a dancer in a certain moment in my life,” said Bernal during an interview with the Star the day before Rosewater screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart made his directorial debut with the movie, and also wrote the screenplay, which is based on Bahari’s 2011 memoir, Then They Came for Me. Then based in London, Bahari was reporting on the controversial Iranian presidential election for Newsweek in 2009 when he was arrested as a spy and held in solitary confinement for 118 days.

Blindfolded, Bahari endures long days of interrogation by “the specialist” (Kim Bodnia), whom he dubs Rosewater because of his rose-scented cologne.

A glimmer of hope from an unexpected place inspires Bahari to break into a spontaneous, twirling performance to Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” — music he hears in his head in his tiny cell.

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“It was just an improvisation,” Bernal said, adding he got to the point in shooting where he felt he had “ownership” of Bahari’s character and knew he could let the scene unfold naturally.

The cell is also where Bahari holds imaginary conversations onscreen with his late sister and father, and Bernal said his movements helped express the feeling that his family was with him.

“The dance in ways (is) also making fun of himself dancing, doing kind of Flashdance moves, touching each wall,” Bernal explained. “That ended up being something very significant that I didn’t think about in the moment but touching the wall as your dancing companions and how beautiful and sad that is, you build up a world where you are in touch with people other than your ‘specialist.’ ”

Bernal, 35, may have been inspired by his mother, dancer and actress Patricia Bernal, to consider a different artistic path, but turned instead to acting, first earning critical praise outside of Mexico with 2001’s Ytu mamá también before going on to well-received roles in The Motorcycle Diaries, Babel, Blindness, Sin Nombre and No.

A social and political activist and one who has often campaigned for human rights, Bernal said he was drawn to playing Bahari.

“People that bear witness can put a power structure on its knees and that’s what Maziar’s job is now after being in prison for such a long time,” said Bernal.

“What Maziar felt at a certain moment is there was chance there was going to be a way of change really happening,” said Bernal of Bahari’s decision to stay in Tehran and cover the elections despite potential risk.

“He jumped into that hope. He kept himself in Iran a few more days than he should have and that’s when he was caught … that he never in his wildest dreams thought this was going to happen that he would be accused as the leader of the Western media.”

His accusers had no proof that Bahari was a spy so they grasped at ridiculous “evidence,” calling a Sopranos DVD they found in his mother’s home “pornography” and demanding to know what exactly went on in the “famous” state of New Jersey and why he went there. That lead Bahari to fabricate an amusing excuse for visiting that adds a dryly humorous note to the film.

“All of a sudden Maziar realized he could get distance from the guy and gain some time by giving him what he wanted. Just tell him whatever. Just tell him s---,” laughed Bernal, adding it’s “one of the most basic techniques in history, since The Arabian Nights.”

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